How to win corporate hearts and minds, the importance of the right institutions and climate partisanship

Eco-helping hands

Few, if any, large companies fail to have reams of environmental processes and policies in place these days. But speak to any environment manager frankly and they’ll admit that systematising things only gets a company so far.

Employees need to be on board too. Academic studies regularly reference the importance of individual and voluntary employee behaviour in greening companies. The eco-aware office worker pushing colleagues to recycle is the archetypal example. There are many others, as evidenced in this paper. Yet current literature is vague on categorising these discretionary behaviours and positively silent on how to measure them.

This clearly presented paper addresses both conundrums. To begin, an acronym (every self-respecting environment concept needs one): OCBE, or, in its full version, organisational citizenship behaviour for the environment. The typology of OCBEs, it is argued, is threefold.

First come eco-initiatives: ie those behaviours that cumulatively help a company’s green performance. Eco-civic engagement is the second: think participating in voluntary eco-events or projects. And the third category is eco-helping, which encompasses any action that helps colleagues clean up and green up.

The authors test out their thinking on a twin set of MBA students. The results prove the empirical robustness of the model, as well as offering up a more detailed and nuanced spec for each category. There are lessons for managers, too. Voluntary participation in eco-debates, for example, isn’t likely to happen without company support. Likewise, employees are more likely to participate voluntarily in eco-schemes if a business practises decentralised decision-making or has leeway to change existing practice.

A more practitioner-friendly measurement approach would be welcome. That’ll come, in time. Even for now, the deeper understanding this offers about what employees do voluntarily to green their companies and why is hugely valuable.

Boiral, O, & Paille, P, (Summer 2012) “Organizational Citizenship Behaviour for the Environment: Measurement and Validation”, Journal of Business Ethics, 109: 431-445.

Building inclusive markets

Billions of dollars in aid money and corporate-led development efforts are poured into building markets to alleviate poverty and resolve social inequality. Yet vast swathes of the developing world remain locked out. The reason, according to this challenging paper, revolves around “institutional voids”. And what, pray, are they? The idea is based on a well-established assumption among social sciences that markets are complex institutional bundles just as much as they are systems of economic exchange. Formal and informal rules, institutional customs and biases, all combine to create an “institutional architecture” within which markets operate. The “voids” are the crevices created by conflict and contradictions between different institutions.

If that all sounds very abstract, fear not. This paper is grounded in the practical realities of trying to build inclusive markets in rural Bangladesh. Six years of intermittent interview data, coupled with extensive statistics, reveal the strictures of gender, race, religion and social class that limit market access.

Consider the political sphere. Local village councils have considerable influence over women’s property rights; a fact acerbated by local patterns of influence, such as patronage and corruption. Or take the social sphere. Rules of kinship and patriarchy restrict women's opportunities to sell or rent their assets or property. Inclusive markets therefore require existing social orders to be renegotiated and new actors legitimised. Building markets on top of existing institutions is fruitless. The voids this creates are bottomless. Instead, market-building efforts need to take place in harmony with local institutions.

Mair, J, Marti, I, & Ventresca, M (September 2012) “Building inclusive markets in rural Bangladesh”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol 55 (4): 819-850.

Climate change and culture wars

We know the planet is getting warmer, and the science proves – beyond reasonable doubt, more or less – that man is substantially responsible. So why the ongoing arguments? How do business sceptics keep face? The answer lies away from the climatological data. Look at the social sciences, not their physical counterpart, the authors argue.

Disbelief in climate science may be curious, but it’s not illogical. When people’s prior ideological preferences, personal experience, and values are considered, their responses make more sense. Climate change ultimately “is a debate over culture, world views, and ideology”. Hence the sharp correlation in the US between party affiliation and (un)certainty about climate change. It’s up there with abortion and gun control as a marker of individual identity and tribal loyalty.

Can anything be done? Pessimists say no – the sceptics will always be sceptical. Optimists believe otherwise. If somehow we can get the world onto a low-carbon, green-energy footing, the arguing need not continue. A third alternative is to pursue a “consensus-based discussion”. This is perhaps the most realistic. Progressive businesses should consider how they can get such a discussion going. The trick will be to avoid polarising positions (“is climate change happening or not?” for example), and shift instead towards the underlying interests and values that are really at play.

Hoffman, A, (Fall 2012) “Climate Science as Culture War”, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 10 (4): 30-37.

Campus news

Witten/Herdecke University and Oikos International are hosting a nine-day series of workshops and lecture on social entrepreneurship. The Oikos Winter School 2012 will be held in Germany’s Ruhr region, November 3-11.

The University of Southampton is hosting the second International Conference on Socially Responsible and Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation October 24-26.



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